


i got a burning inside (to scream you know i'm alive)

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Series: Whumptober 2020 [17]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Starvation, Stressed Number Five | The Boy, Temporary Character Death, and so I gave him more issues!!!, thats how you solve problems right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Day 24: Sensory DeprivationThe Three Weeks that Weren't
Series: Whumptober 2020 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947877
Comments: 13
Kudos: 179
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	i got a burning inside (to scream you know i'm alive)

**Author's Note:**

> this one uhhhh gets kinda dark (figuratively and literally)

He waited, in the dark, breathing quietly. It had been a few days, if he was remembering correctly. A few weeks. 

He couldn’t see. Hadn’t been able to see. He scratched at the ground, feeling the notches he’d made, counting them carefully. He’d kept meticulous track, counting seconds, minutes, hours. He knew, however, that the count wasn’t as accurate as it should be. 

He didn’t know how he knew. He slept when he was tired and woke when he was hungry and the instinctive pull of time told him how long had passed. He knew, something in him _knew_. 

It also couldn’t have been long at all because he was still alive. 

_A person can go three or so weeks without food. They can’t last three days without water._

He didn’t know how he knew that either. But then again, he didn’t know anything, really. He had been collecting water, however, in the dark of the cave, but he was so hungry. So hungry. He counted numbers and circled his rocky prison so many times, cupping his hands into the pool of water, listening to the drip, drip, drip from the ceiling overhead. Worse still was the smell. The smell of rotting meat. He had first started noticing it a few days ago. It seemed to be coming from the large rockfall, which had prompted his excavations. 

He was weak and starving, but something was there, something was there, _something was there._

The rocks made his fingers bleed and his arms tremble from weakness. He’d discovered the source of the rot yesterday. He’d uncovered fingers, soft and smooth and swelling from decomposition. He didn’t know how he knew what decomp was, just as he didn’t know why the numbers one through seven meant so much to him. 

He had been ready to give up except the smell of the corpse had attracted a rat which he’d made quick work of. He felt better, not great but better. His mind was clearer. He knew that the way out had to belong in his memories. If only he could remember. The food had helped a little, something sparking in him. 

But it wasn’t his memory. 

It felt like home, almost, like power, like comfort, like hope. It curdled in his stomach, ready and waiting. But for what? 

His thoughts felt so sluggish, but the numbers he had counted over and over whirled through his mind, energy pooling in his limbs and mind, racing through his veins, pure thought in his blood. Mind over matter? Mind _was_ matter- and without thinking or maybe truly thinking for the first time since he had woken up in this cave, he reached out, tugging on the fabric of the darkness, the only thing he had ever known. 

His hands glowed, blue and white, filling the cavern with light. He gaped, eyes wide, laughing, as his prison brightened. He couldn't see, he had to blink spots out of his eyes, the mere act of sight almost overwhelming in its intensity. 

It took him longer than he’d liked, marveling at the shape of the stone and of his fingers, small and dirty. He caught sight, then, of the rocks that blocked the entrance. He crept over, caution and fear in his steps as he finally saw the small opening he had made in it. There was the hand, fingers black and nibbled on by the rat, bone exposed, blood congealing, the limb almost swollen grotesquely. 

His breathing hitched. 

He knew he was no stranger to death, he didn't know how, but he knew. This was worse, however. This was bad- this was _wrong_. His heart had dropped like a stone to his stomach, light flaring with his emotions. On the hand was a mark, a drawing, a tattoo, dark and mottled by the rot of the skin. It was an umbrella, surrounded by a circle. 

Whatever that was, it meant something. It meant he had failed again. It meant he had done the worst- it meant- _it meant_ \- he _had_ to go _back_ . The light pulsed, brighter. He didn't know what instinct had prompted such a thought, but he knew, somehow, that it was _right._

He needed to go back. Where? How? He didn't know. All he knew was that he would do anything. _Anything_ . He would rip apart the universe, he would destroy the very fabric of reality, he would break all the laws of time and space, of man, of nature- to _fix_ this. Whatever it was. His chest hitched, his arms shook from the strain of holding up the world, the cave glowed, blue and white and beautiful. 

He screamed. 

Tendrils of blue and white arched up his arms, the cavern too bright to look at and the cave- the cave _moved_ . His chest burned as he saw the bones of the rat twitch, flesh molding back over it seamlessly, his stomach aching. The rat moved back, back and away, the rocks he’d so desperately tried to dislodge covering the hand up again. He was- he was- the rockfall _shook_ , light shining in and he ran without hesitation- blue streaking past him as pushed through time. His exhaustion left him, his hunger vanishing, the clouds filling his mind lifting. 

He darted forward, mouth opening to warn the crumpled body that was currently unsnapping back into a standing position, a flashlight in her hands- he could feel something in him bending and changing as he ran- no, _no_ , as _Five_ ran, faster than he had ever before, his powers sputtering from the effort, the world cracking from the weight of it. 

Number Five fell back into reality, slamming into his sister with the force of several tons of rock, throwing her backwards. Allison shouted as they fell, flashlight clattering against the stone floor. They skidded and Five clambered to his feet, body no longer aching from starvation and thirst, his mind no longer fogged from pain and memory loss. He grabbed her hands, “Allison, get up, get up!” 

She scrambled to her feet, “Five, what the actual hell-?” 

He didn't answer, yanking her behind him as he bolted down the tunnel, chest heaving. They hadn't gotten more than ten feet when, with a low rumble, the section of the cave collapsed, the entire roof falling in. Five pulled on his power one last time, desperately yanking Allison after him. They vanished with a pop. 

The portal spit them back out on the grassy hillside near the cave entrance. 

Five landed on his stomach, Allison yelping as she fell after him. She huffed, pushing herself upwards, gaping at the now sealed and completely impassable cave. 

Five looked up, eyes wide, the sun too much, too loud, too _bright_. His limbs hurt, his bones ached, his mind felt stretched too thin. 

Allison sighed morosely, “I guess I'm going to have to tell Klaus we lost his flashlight.” 

Five looked at her and then at the cave- his prison for nearly a month. He couldn't help the laugh that built in his chest, ripping out of his throat, pulling his lungs apart from the force of it. He couldn't help the tears either. 

Allison reached out, concerned, her hands slim and warm, her umbrella tattoo smooth and unmarred, “Hey, Five, you okay?” 

Five nodded, burying his head in his hands, the familiar darkness somehow comforting as he tried to control his panicked breathing, “Yeah. Yeah, just…” he sucked in a desperate breath of fresh air, the sun too bright and Allison warm and real beside him, her unharmed hand on his shoulder. 

He couldn’t help the way his voice broke, “...It’s been a long day.” 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is here: https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/


End file.
